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Comment by Birkalo | Hacker News Reader

I think that BLUF is definitely the better way of writing most informational pieces, particularly articles such as this.

It's a similar concept to the 'Topic Sentence' which would be used to sum up the ideas of the following paragraph.

The only reason I could see for actively choosing not to use BLUF - would be to force users to read more of your article for the sake of it, which seems (to me) like a 'cheap' tactic.

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Do you think presenting the conclusion up-front could detract from the “story-telling” of the piece? By walking the reader through the investigation and its findings in chronological order, perhaps the article aims to make the reader feel like they are performing the investigation themselves?

Some readers could prefer the story-telling style, but others prioritize getting the information. To contrast, a novel wouldn't give away the ending on the first page, but a scholarly article absolutely has to give the take-away in the abstract.

I personally think for informative reporting, it's maximally respectful of the reader's time and attention to give a quick summary up front. Then they can decide if they want to continue for the full details and story-telling experience. Many people won't, but those people would probably skip the story in the first place and click through to the comments for the punch line.

Thanks for bringing up this discussion!

Agreed. Although being upfront to some degree is useful there is a balance, some things are better revealed in context to fully appreciate. If the conclusion is less binary or singular something can be sacrificed without ruining everything, but in this case I can't see a way to not destroy the story telling... I'm pretty sure I preferred reading this without BLUF.

I can't think of one right off the bat, but I've read some great novels where the author starts by telling you what's going to happen, but you still don't want to stop reading. In fact sometimes it makes you all the more interested in continuing with the story.

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